Field of Study USA: Public Health

Puja Raol

Puja Raol is a neuroscience student in the Honors College at Georgia State University, where she graduated summa cum laude with minors in health policy and sociology. She aspires to become a physician who makes community-health interventions through direct clinical care for underserved populations. As a presidential scholar, Puja has demonstrated exceptional academic achievement with sustained commitment to leadership, research, and community service. She recently received the Nell Hamilton Trotter Award, the highest student leadership honor at Georgia State University.
Puja’s clinical and community engagement centers on improving healthcare access for underserved populations. As an executive member at Shifa Clinic, a nonprofit serving refugees and uninsured patients, she has led initiatives to expand preventive care, including coordinating six mobile mammogram programs in partnership with Northside Hospital.

Apart from Georgia State University, she has had research experience at Harvard Medical School and the Emory University School of Medicine. She is a recipient of the Gilman Scholarship and several first-place research awards. Her interests lie at the intersection of neuroscience, public health, and health equity, with a focus on addressing mental health disparities in marginalized populations.

Since research in low- and middle-income countries accords priority to physical health, adolescent mental health in rural areas remains understudied, particularly in terms of affordable interventions. Puja’s Fulbright-Nehru project is examining adolescent mental well-being in rural low-income areas of India, focusing on scalable, low-cost mental health interventions. The research, being conducted in Jagadhia, Gujarat, in partnership with IIPG and SEWA Rural (a voluntary development organization), is leveraging local surveyors and community alliances. It is mainly assessing and implementing community-centered strategies, aiming to develop replicable, cross-cultural models that can reduce mental health disparities in India and similar global settings.

Avi Patel

Avi Patel is a recent graduate of Yale University, where he studied the history of science, medicine, and public health; he also had a concentration in global health studies. His research explores how cities, infrastructure, and environmental conditions shape human health; it focuses particularly on mobility, climate, and health equity, such as the case of rapidly growing Global South cities, where climate change, pollution, and unequal access to infrastructure increasingly affect everyday well-being. Across his research and fieldwork, Avi is interested in how urban design and public policy can help build healthier and more inclusive communities. His academic and professional experiences span environmental health research, global health systems, and science communication. Through international collaboration and research, Avi hopes to contribute to more people-centered approaches to urban development and health.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Research Fellow, Avi is studying how air pollution affects physical activity and active mobility in the Delhi National Capital Region. Hosted by IIT Delhi Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Centre under the mentorship of Dr. Rahul Goel, his project is combining geospatial pollution data with time-use and mobility datasets to examine how environmental exposure shapes walking, cycling, and outdoor activity across local neighborhoods and seasons. The project seeks to advance understanding of how environmental conditions influence urban accessibility, public health, and equitable mobility in rapidly urbanizing cities. Ultimately, it aims to facilitate the building of healthier, more equitable, and resilient cities.

Renee Muthakana

Renee Muthakana is a graduate student at Duke University whose work lies at the intersection of law, policy, and medicine. With a focus on reproductive health systems, her research examines how legal and policy frameworks shape healthcare delivery. Renee is a University of Pittsburgh summa cum laude graduate, where she majored in women’s studies and chemistry.

She has two years of healthcare consulting experience at a leading global consulting firm, where she supported health systems in the areas of operational strategy, policy implementation, and performance improvement. Her research includes peer-reviewed and conference-based work on global in vitro fertilization (IVF) policy frameworks, assisted reproductive technology (ART), AI governance in clinical settings, and the inclusion of pregnant women in research. Recently, she coauthored a peer-reviewed article in BMC Reproductive Health; the article is a comparative analysis of IVF policies across 24 countries and identifies variation in regulatory approaches while highlighting India as a key case for further study due to its rapidly expanding ART market and the evolving regulatory landscape related to it.

Renee’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is examining how India’s ART policies can be strengthened to improve the quality of care. Building on Renee’s recent coauthored publication, her project is conducting a national- and state-level ART policy review, alongside interviews with policymakers, clinicians, and patients, with the aim of generating actionable insights to inform policy development.

Janaki Menon

Janaki Menon is an undergraduate student at the University of South Florida (USF) pursuing a BS in public health with a minor in biology. Her academic and professional interests center on infectious disease, maternal and child health, and global health equity, with a specific focus on developing culturally grounded, community-based interventions. At the USF Morsani College of Medicine, Janaki has worked as an undergraduate research assistant in both the Ho Lab and the Mindsets in Motion Lab, where she has contributed to research at the intersection of health behavior, clinical outcomes, and patient-centered care. In a microbiology laboratory setting, she has conducted independent work identifying bacterial species, including Staphylococcus epidermidis, thereby strengthening her laboratory and analytical skills.

In addition to her research experience, Janaki has served as a certified medical assistant, gaining hands-on clinical experience and exposure to patient care. She has also interned at Meliora Health, where she worked closely with children with autism and ADHD, further deepening her understanding of developmental and behavioral health. These experiences have shaped her commitment to improving healthcare accessibility for vulnerable populations, particularly children.

Janaki’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is evaluating the cultural responsiveness and effectiveness of the Kochi Intervention for Tobacco Smoke-Free Homes (KIFT) initiative in Kerala, India. Using qualitative and community-based methods, her project is examining how cultural norms, household dynamics, and gender roles influence the adoption and sustainability of smoke-free home interventions. The study aims to identify barriers and facilitators to behavioral change and generate insights to improve culturally tailored public health strategies. Ultimately, the project seeks to strengthen the intervention’s design and contribute to reducing secondhand smoke exposure in vulnerable populations.

Nandini Krishnamoorthy

Nandini Krishnamoorthy received her BA in community health from Tufts University in May 2026. Having grown up in Mumbai and later moving to the United States for college, she is particularly interested in understanding how social, environmental, and structural factors shape health across different communities and contexts.

During her time at Tufts, she explored the intersections of clinical medicine, public health, and research. Alongside clinical work as a medical assistant, she contributed to research projects spanning global mental health, HIV medication adherence, maternal health equity, and global clinical research ethics. As a Tufts Laidlaw Scholar, Nandini conducted a qualitative research project examining mental health in urban informal settlements in Mumbai, India. She has also held research and internship positions with the Fenway Institute, Boston Medical Center, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Center for Global Health Equity, the Multi-Regional Clinical Trials Center of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard, and the Tufts University School of Medicine.

Outside of her academic and professional work, Nandini was a member of a competitive dance team and has been actively involved in South Asian advocacy and affinity spaces. She also loves to read, crochet/knit, and sing.

Nandini’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is a qualitative study of perinatal mental health in Mandala, an informal settlement in Mumbai. Building on the work of Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action and Research (PUKAR), a local organization, she is collaborating with community members and “barefoot” researchers to examine how women understand distress, seek support, and navigate care.

Sivani Manimaran

Sivani Manimaran is a graduate of the University of Michigan, from where she earned a BS in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology, alongside a minor in public policy, as well as a leadership certificate. She is deeply passionate about the intersection of medicine, global health, and engineering.

Sivani served as the president of Michigan Health Engineered for All Lives (M-HEAL), an over 300-member student organization of 12 project teams, each working to develop a low-cost healthcare prototype with a global partner. Sivani’s personal commitment to this mission was best reflected in her role as a colead of her own project team, M-HEAL: The Initiative. Collaborating and codesigning directly with physician partners in Kumasi, Ghana, for this project, she led the development of affordable neonatal incubator and kangaroo mother carrier prototypes. She traveled to Ghana twice to get direct feedback on the prototypes, engage with the local community, and understand cultural insights with the team members.

Beyond her research and global health initiatives, Sivani is a dedicated mentor. As a residential advisor for the Michigan Research and Discovery Scholars (MRADS), she has supported students to adjust to college and start research. Her experiences in M-HEAL, research, and mentorship have served as a catalyst for her passion to advance, advocate, and develop solutions with global communities.

To address the persistent challenges of babies with low birth weight in India, Sivani’s Fulbright-Nehru project is leading a mixed-methods study to improve Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) adherence. As part of the project, she is conducting a needs assessments with NICU mothers and stakeholders to identify cultural and logistical barriers to sustained care. Leveraging these insights, she will help develop a KMC training program for providers and family-inclusive sessions that extend caregiving responsibilities. Finally, Sivani will track quantitative metrics and caregiver comfort to refine such interventions. By focusing on these community-driven interventions, her project seeks to improve outcomes for preterm infants, thereby providing a scalable model for sustainable neonatal thermoregulation and long-term health in the Indian context.

Kalyani Lawrence

Kalyani Lawrence is a 2025 graduate of Tufts University, where she studied biology and environmental studies. Her academic interests lie at the intersection of medicine, public health, environmental justice, ecology, and (de)colonial studies. She is committed to producing culturally sensitive work that directly benefits the communities she engages with.

During her undergraduate years, Kalyani sought avenues to unite her interests in health and medicine with a burgeoning passion for environmental justice. She became involved in local and global environmental health initiatives, leading a Human and Environmental Health team at the Tufts Office of Sustainability and performing research for the NGO 1for3 which contributed to the development of food sovereignty and Well Child Health programs in a West Bank refugee camp.

Kalyani has accumulated over 5,000 hours of clinical experience ranging from emergency medicine in Boston to reconstructive surgery and rural medicine in Maharashtra. Through these stints, she has become intent on bringing an approach to healthcare that is culturally relevant, based on justice, and grounded in systems thinking.

Kalyani’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is focusing on Adivasi subsistence farmers in a drought-prone region of Maharashtra. Recognizing that shifting environmental and sociocultural pressures influence the conditions required to sustain health, and that such changes produce complexities difficult to capture in medicalized frameworks, her work is exploring the ways that this community understands and relates environmental changes to their health and well-being. Her research is following a community-focused approach in an attempt to better represent the nuances of local realities. This project aspires to contribute to the preservation and elevation of local knowledge, support advocacy efforts, and provide context-specific data which can inform action.

Lasya Kandukuri

Lasya Kandukuri is an honors graduate of the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, where she earned a BS in neuroscience, with minors in chemistry and creative writing. Having completed over 300 hours of emergency medical technician training, she is EMT certified in the state of North Carolina. As a research assistant with UNC Neurology’s Dementia with Lewy Bodies Consortium, she has managed large public health datasets, contributing to novel research in understanding symptom progression within the disease, and presented at both the 2026 Celebration of Undergraduate Research at UNC as well as the 4th Annual Symposium for Learning about Alzheimer’s disease-related Medical Research at Duke and UNC (SLAM-DUNC). She has also accumulated over 900 hours as a healthcare provider through her work as an EMT, as an overnight caretaker through CareYaya, and as an intern at Jaipur’s Aarogyam Hospital and its affiliated slum clinic. As the president of the Union County EMS Explorers Program in 2021, Lasya mentored peers interested in emergency medicine through educational workshops and ambulance ride-alongs. Further, as the president of UNC MEDLIFE from 2023 to 2025, she led volunteer initiatives with students and hosted fundraising campaigns for medical aid and education in underserved communities. As a recipient of the 2024 Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship, she completed an eight-week intensive Hindi program at the American Institute of Indian Studies in Jaipur, Rajasthan, where she achieved near-native fluency in the language. Her clinical, research, and leadership experiences have equipped her to navigate complex team dynamics, manage multifaceted projects, and practice collaboration with empathy in service-oriented work. In the long term, she sees herself as a researcher and professor who encourages student inquiry into global health systems, advances accessibility in emergency care, and amplifies the voices of those in need.

Lasya’s Fulbright-Nehru research is investigating how geography and socioeconomic factors impact 108 Ambulance Service response times and thus patient outcomes across urban and peri-urban regions of Jaipur. In collaboration with her host institution in India, she is using multivariable regression and GIS mapping on anonymized EMS datasets to identify predictors of delays, along with a deprivation index constructed from census indicators to capture socioeconomic variation. She is also conducting interviews with first responders, hospital providers, researchers, and policy experts to gather insights into potential strategies for intervention, and analyzing patterns in order to minimize delays and mortality rates.

Ananya Kamalakannan

Ananya Kamalakannan is a 2026 graduate from the Ohio State University, where she earned her BS in systems and behavioral neuroscience, with minors in medical humanities and global public health. Her academic and professional work centers on mental health equity, medical education, and the social determinants of health. As part of her honors undergraduate thesis, she conducted research on mental health trends among medical students by analyzing national datasets to investigate disparities in various mental health outcomes, including depression, anxiety, eating disorders, substance use, self-injurious behaviors, and suicidality.

Beyond research, Ananya is deeply involved in community engagement and student leadership. She was a Morrill Scholar at Ohio State and a recipient of the Kaplan Humanitarian Award, accolades that reflected her sustained leadership skills across civic and cultural organizations. She has also served as the president of Global Medical Brigades (a student-led volunteer organization that implements sustainable health systems), Red Saree (a nonprofit focused on health equity and awareness), and Tamil Sangam (a cultural outfit that preserves and promotes Tamil cultural heritage). Throughout her undergraduate career, Ananya was deeply engaged with South Asian communities across both the United States and India; during this time, she led mental wellness workshops for youth through Snehalaya, an NGO supporting women and children affected by poverty and HIV/AIDS, based in Ahmednagar, India.

A classically trained Indian dancer, and visual artist, Ananya is passionate about fostering cross-cultural dialogue through both public health and the arts. She hopes to become a physician-researcher focused on global mental health, medical education reform, and developing culturally grounded approaches to student well-being.

Ananya’s Fulbright-Nehru project involves a mixed-methods study examining the mental health of Indian medical students hosted at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) in Bengaluru. The project is investigating how academic pressures and structural inequalities shape student mental health outcomes and treatment utilization. Drawing on her epidemiological research at Ohio State, Ananya is adapting validated survey instruments to the Indian context and conducting qualitative interviews with the students and faculty. She hopes to translate the findings into culturally grounded policy recommendations to improve institutional support systems and foster a generation of medical providers who embrace mental health as a priority.

Neeraj Kadubandi

Neeraj Kadubandi is a recent graduate from Johns Hopkins University, where he earned a bachelor’s in public health. He is passionate about the intersection of substance use disorders and concurrent complications, including mental health disorders. His work focuses on addressing barriers to care and expanding access to behavioral health services. During his undergraduate years, Neeraj conducted research on the remote assessment of patients with psychiatric conditions and constructed a novel catatonia rating instrument, the feasibility of which was evaluated across diverse motor profiles. By comparing methadone clinics with a hypothetical community pharmacy setting, he also investigated how stigma around medication for opioid use disorder is influenced by the dispensing location. For his work, Neeraj received the Provost’s Undergraduate Research Award; the work was also presented at the International Congress of Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders and the National Network of Depression Centers.

As a Fulbright-Nehru scholar in India, Neeraj is exploring how stigma around alcohol use disorder and co-occurring mental health illness intersect to deter patients from seeking behavioral health services. In collaboration with the GITAM, Visakhapatnam, he is employing a mixed-methods approach to study the local community and generate evidence-based strategies to strengthen mental health and addiction services, as well as to inform policy initiatives.